Disappointed in 25

[jzucker]

From what I can tell, the same bugs exist that existed in 2014.5 and the supposed support and willingness to fix them is no different. After 10 years, makemusic finally admits the copy/paste bug regarding filters and tablature but says they won't fix it. And it's a very simple fix. Here's the pseudocode.

auto nLowestfret = tabStaff.GetLowestFret();
if (CopyingNotes)
{
nLowestFret = PromptForLowestFret();
}
DoCopy(nLowestFret);

==============================

If they can't and are unwilling to do even the simplest of fixes, I'm not even sure what to say. In the meantime, I'm going to explore a sibelius competitive upgrade.

[ebiggs1]

I'm going to explore a sibelius competitive upgrade.

You will find it has bugs too. Maybe not the same but bugds never-the-less. If you are used to the complete flexibility of Finale, I bet you will be disappointed with Sib. I was/am !

[MikeHalloran]

While you're at it, Overture, Notion will cost you $128 combined through the end of the year. Heck, MuseScore and LilyPond are free. Get them all and tell us how it works out.

Seriously, sometimes different apps have different strengths. Use what works.

I have all of the above except Sibelius which has a workflow I dislike—even more so than Notion.

I even use Encore now and then but can't recommend buying it to anyone as it's way, way (way, way) overdue for an upgrade.

[jzucker]

i know a lot of arrangers who write for the military big bands and it seems most have switched to sibelius. I gave up on it because the chord library was not very flexible but I'm at the point where that doesn't matter to me anymore and I have a very specific niche I'm using it for. I only write jazz lead sheets, jazz solos and jazz exercise books (the latter of which I duplicate the treble clef in tablature) so if sibelius does that and works better than finale I'll probably switch. I don't care about stuff like extracting parts and auto transposing them and it seems that a huge amount of dev resources have gone into the playback feature which for my purposes is still very weak and possibly it's because it's oriented more towards symphonic guys?

But at the very least, I'm going to spend a few days with sibelius and see if it's workable...

[motet]

Dorico, perhaps?

[BuonTempi]

Well, I hope Sibelius is better for you. If Finale was the ideal tool for everyone, there wouldn't be a need for other apps. For my work, I find Finale 25 helps me to knock out accurate and attractive work very quickly. Yes, there are some fiddly bits and annoyances, but Finale's flexibility generally makes them easy to sort out.

I've tried Dorico, and while I'm nowhere near up-to-speed with how to use it, I do find it surprisingly slow at some tasks. It lacks things I need like Figured bass, which I could fake, but which Finale handles well. It's also frustrating if you want something that's not quite how it wants to do something.

Sibelius is not without faults, either. I heard someone recently saying that every time they went to change something, Sibelius respaced the whole thing and destroyed the edits -- which was reassuringly familiar.

There are 14 people in MM's development team, presumably each with different specialties. Now imagine you've got a list of bugs and features, each with a different man-hour cost and desired priority, to fit into your release schedule. And............. GO !!

[N Grossingink]

Dorico, perhaps?

Dorico doesn't support tablature. However, I'm getting the feeling that TAB will be added sooner than later, perhaps within a matter of months. Each new feature Dorico has added has been well thought out and fairly mature, so it will be worth looking at, jzucker.

Be aware that Dorico is not nearly as flexible as Finale in many little things that Finale users have taken for granted.

N.